The King th-3

by John Norman

“Hurry!” said Tuvo Ausonius.

  “Yes, Master!” she cried, hurrying from the room.

  CHAPTER 10

  “You would not dare!” said the blonde.

  Her hands, wrists crossed and bound, were tied high over her head. They were fastened by a short rope to a ring, the ring dangling on a chain from the ceiling. The wrist rope could be shortened or lengthened, depending on the height of the slave. The blonde was of medium height. She was fastened in such a way that she was on her tiptoes, unable to get her heels to the metal flooring. Her white serving gown had been pulled down, about her ankles. Her body faced the metal wall. She turned her head, as she could. The severe officer, whose name was Ronisius, was behind her. Her hair had already been thrown forward.

  “Do not dare!” she said.

  Slaves, in the common room, laughed merrily.

  “You were insufficiently deferent,” said Ronisius.

  She struggled, helplessly.

  “You were clumsy,” he said.

  These things were true. At least twice her speech had been insufficiently deferent, even omitting the respectful term “Master.” Too, she had been slow to bring a tureen of hiris to the table, and had failed once to kneel to the side, as is customary when waiting to serve or be summoned, but had stood, and had stood where the barbarian, if he might lift his head, must see her. The other slaves had not cared for this, for they, too, found the barbarian, in his brooding, feral way, handsome, but dared not so call themselves to his attention. Ronisius had criticized her, and she had gone to kneel with the others, pulling her gown up, and putting it about her knees, so that it would be her knees, and not the gown, which would be on the floor, as though she might be no more than another slave. Perhaps it was because of his criticism, and her fury at the reprimand, addressed to her as though she might be no more than a slave girl, that she had been unsteady, that she had spilled wine, and at his own goblet.

  All in all, she had certainly not served well at the captain’s table, where the captain, the barbarian, and certain officers would sup at the conclusion of the ship day. Five slaves were assigned to serve there each ship evening. The ship had now been out for four days. It was the first time she had been permitted to serve at the captain’s table.

  “You would not dare!” she said.

  “I think you are stupid,” he said.

  “I am not stupid!” she cried.

  Then, as she cried out, she was switched.

  He was not as gentle with her as he might have been, considering that she was a new slave, not even branded, a recently embonded debtress from Myron VII.

  But it had been at his own goblet that the wine had been spilled.

  “You may now thank me for your beating,” he said.

  She looked at him, over her shoulder, startled, tears in her eyes.

  Twice more, swiftly, impatiently, the switch spoke.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” she cried.

  Twice more then, again, angrily, the switch spoke, and she leapt in the bonds, squirming, crying.

  “Thank you, Master!” she said.

  “You will be released later,” he said.

  “Yes, Master!” she gasped, startled by the piteous urgency of her exhalatory exclamation, and, too, by its seeming appropriateness, and fittingness, and, horrifyingly, by the complete, irrepressible naturalness with which it had somehow escaped her. “Thank you, Master!”

  She then hung in the ropes, her back stinging.

  About her slaves were discoursing merrily, kneeling, facing one another, playing guessing games, amusing themselves.

  I hate everything, she thought.

  She grew furious.

  How could the agent, whoever he might be, permit her to be switched, as though she might be no more than a clumsy, errant slave?

  The blond officer, Corelius, had seemed horrified that she had been conducted from the captain’s table by Ronisius.

  Corelius must be the agent then, but he had not objected, though he must have realized that the admonitory switch might have been laid to her beauty, just as if she were a slave.

  He could not interfere, of course, without revealing himself.

  But Ronisius might be the agent, treating her harshly, to conceal her true identity, and his relationship to her, as the purveyor of the delicate blade.

  There was Lysis, the chief supply officer, who had seemed to pay her little attention. But it was he who had brought them to the ship.

  The stock keeper, oddly, had been at the table, as well, with his porcine face, with the small eyes, the one who had subjected her to such humiliation in the slave cage.

  It might be he, why else would he, of his rank, be permitted at the table?

  How she had hated serving him, one of the humiliori, at best,

  Surely one of the humiliori could not be the agent, on whom she, herself of the honestori, even of the high patricians, indeed, of the senatorial class itself, would have to depend!

  There was the captain, too, of course, Phidias, lord of the Narcona.

  It could be he, she supposed.

  But the Narcona was only a freighter.

  Yet, too, it was an imperial ship.

  But presumably such an officer would stay with the ship.

  But, too, who would be less likely to be suspected than the commanding officer?

  Who would be more powerful than he, who better placed in manage the affair, to see it done?

  But then, she thought, who would be more likely, given his authority, his command, his prominence, to be suspected?

  No, it seemed that things had best be done secretly, far beneath his level of command, utterly unsuspected by him. He would not dream of the intrigues afoot, on his own vessel.

  It did not seem that Iaachus would risk taking such a fellow, a common captain, a professional mariner, into his confidence, entrusting him with such a serious business.

  It did not seem likely that it would be he.

  But it might be he.

  She jerked in the ropes.

  “Free yourself, Cornhair!” laughed one of the girls.

  The supply officer had given them names, making them kneel, in a line, in the common room.

  “You are ‘Filene,’ “he had said to her. “Who are you?”

  “I am Filene, Master,” she had said, following the example of the other girls.

  In time a mariner came to the common room and released her.

  “Garments, ladies,” he said.

  The few garments in the room were surrendered.

  These were the five serving gowns which had been worn by the slaves serving at the captain’s table. He then, the gowns over his arm, turned off the light in the common room and left, closing the door.

  This left only some small, reddish hold lights lit, high in the walls.

  “They have not even chained us to the rings at the base of the wall,” said one of the slaves.

  “We are not going anywhere,” laughed one of the slaves, fingering the thin line that marked the separation of the steel wall from the closed hatch.

  “Why have we not been chained?” asked another, wonderingly.

  “We are special slaves,” said another.

  The blonde smiled to herself, in the dim, reddish darkness.

  “Let us sleep,” said one.

  “Give me your blanket,” said the blonde to a small brunette, the smallest of the slaves.

  “You have your own blanket!” said the tiny, well-curved, exquisite slave.

  “Give it to me!” said the blonde.

  “No! Stop!” cried the smaller woman.

  “Give it to me,” said the blonde, “slave!”

  They pulled at the blanket, it between them.

  “Cornhair, stop it!” said another brunette, she who had been designated by the supply officer as first girl.

  “Give it to me!” cried the blonde.

  “Seize her!” said the first girl.

  In a moment the blonde, seized, found herself held
down, on her stomach, on the steel flooring of the common room, her arms and legs widely spread.

  “Bring the switch,” said the first girl.

  “No!” cried the blonde. “Do not switch me! Please, Mistresses! Do not switch me, Mistresses!”

  She heard the switch being tossed aside.

  She was released.

  “But you will have no blanket tonight, Cornhair,” said the first girl.

  “Yes, Mistress,” said the blonde. The first girl is addressed by the other slaves as “Mistress.” That much the blonde, surely, knew.

  Later, cold, her legs drawn up, on the flooring, trying to keep herself warm, the blonde was furious.

  When I am rich, and powerful, she thought, I will have my vengeance on them all. I will buy them and dispose of them to outposts, and mines, and farms, and sell them to worlds of reptiles! Then they will see how special they are!

  She moved a little. How hard was the metal. How uncomfortable she was!

  Ship, whispered she, bring me swiftly to Tangara.

  Then, my secret, hated confederate, who abuses me, or does so little to protect me, put the knife in my hand, that I may finish our business with dispatch. Then I shall come into my fortunes, and you shall all regret that I have not been better treated!

  She recalled how she had placed herself, standing, where the barbarian might have looked up, and seen her. She had pulled her gown down a little, and back, that the sweet fullness of her bosom might be excitingly apparent. He had looked up only at the moment that she had been reprimanded and, embarrassed, humiliated, had been hurried back to her place. Yet, that glimpse, she was sure, might have been sufficient. Too, she had returned to the place with the other girls in such a way, her head high, her shoulders back, and her belly tight, that he might well conjecture the delights of her figure, and find it of interest, for, after all, even the serving gown, long, white and sleeveless, as it is a slave’s garment, does little to conceal the charms of its occupant. Too, in such a way, or similarly, so walking, or holding herself, she had tortured many men, as it had amused her to do. But when she had knelt, and put the gown up, over her knees, that her knees and not the gown might press the floor, she had looked up, and seen him regarding her. But there was something about being on her knees which did not give her confidence, and which put the entire matter into a quite different light. She tried to adjust her gown in such a way as to better conceal her bosom, but when she looked up, he had returned to his meal.

  She lay there on the steel flooring.

  She could not believe, and it muchly disturbed her, how easily, how naturally, at the time of her switching, the word “Master” had fled from her lips.

  She wondered what it might be to be in the arms of a man such as the barbarian, and as a slave.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Aii!” cried a man, rising to his feet.

  Another pounded on the table, his eyes blazing.

  The melodies of Beyira II seemed incongruous somehow, at first, in the rough hall, with its high timbers, and smoke holes, and rush-strewn, dirt floor, but in moments these things had seemed forgotten and the venue of what occurred might as easily have been a hundred other places, as a woolen tent, lost among dunes; a tavern on Illyrius, a free planet, an emporium planet, a crossroads for slavers and brigands, where good buys might often be found; a brothel, utilizing slaves, on scorching Torus, where one cannot set foot outside without protective gear; a remote pre-embondment prison where the wives and daughters of traitors, awaiting enslavement, are trained for the collar; a slave farm on rural Granicum, where some slaves do not yet know that men exist, and cannot begin to understand the primitive discomforts which dismay them; or, perhaps, a chamber of state, many-columned, lofty, and marble-floored, somewhere within the white, high-walled, turreted palace of some sand lord, rising above a thousand hovels, and caravansaries, the cruel, waterless desert stretching away on all sides. But, too, as easily, and as well, it seems, might the venue be what it was, a rude hall of the Alemanni, a place of Drisriaks on a world now shielded, now closed away, by a whirling storm of stones, marking the skies with light, like the raking claws of beasts; anywhere would do, really, if there were slaves and men.

  “No, no, no!” cried a man, angrily. “Kill her! Kill her!”

  “Be still, watch!” cried another.

  “Do not weaken!” said a man.

  Abrogastes, on his bench, watched, with keen interest.

  Former women of the empire shrank back, moaning, terrified to see what a woman might be.

  “My thighs flame!” wept one.

  “I am a slave, a slave!” cried another.

  Many turned away, but turned back again, quickly.

  The hands of many were at their bared bosoms. They gasped for breath. Their hearts pounded.

  “Oh, oh!” moaned one.

  But the boy who was her keeper just put his switch lightly upon her left shoulder, cautioning her to silence, not even looking at her, unable, it seemed, to take his eyes from the floor.

  Then he lifted the switch a little, absently, hardly aware, it seemed, that he still held it.

  He was a lad, and had not seen such things before.

  The woman turned suddenly, as though she could not help herself, and kissed, and licked, the supple disciplinary instrument near her shoulder.

  The boy was hardly aware of this.

  The attention of both was then returned to the floor.

  “See her writhe at the spear!” cried a man.

  “Aii!” said another.

  The attention, even, of many of the creatures alien to men, was focused upon the floor. Whereas much must have been lost to them surely the vibrations in the air, however they may have experienced them, and the rhythm, and grace, of certain movements, must have had some effect upon them, as they shared with men a world in which there were, should one listen, should one see, should one be attentive, the movements, the songs, of nature, a world in which there were rhythms and cycles, a universe in which there were stars and orbits, and seasons, and days and nights, and tides, even in the earth, drawn by moons, and rain and heat, snow and winds.

  She was now on her knees at the massive spear, the spear of oathing, supported, its butt in the dirt, by two warriors, grasping it, caressing it with her body, her small hands, her helpless lips and mouth.

  Had it been a man surely it would have cried out, mad with pleasure.

  Then she flung herself before it, and, so before it, so prostrated, rolling and twisting, supine, and prone, and on her side, in the rush-strewn dirt, she writhed, sometimes holding out her hands to it, sometimes as though she might half fend it away in unendurable ecstasy, sometimes as though for pity, sometimes as though begging mercy.

  “Let me kill her now, great Abrogastes!” cried a man. “Let me cut her throat!”

  “There is time enough for that later,” growled another man.

  The slave must have heard this, for she moaned in terror.

  “Kill her!” cried another man, one who may have cast his pellet earlier into the pan of death.

  “Be silent!” said a fellow.

  The slave threw the fellow a look of gratitude, but his scowl was such that she was again plunged into misery and terror.

  “Dance, dance, slut!” cried men.

  Then she knelt before the spear, a yard or so before it, and, slowly, to the music, bent herself backward, until her head was back, upon the dirt floor, her dark hair scattered upon it, in which position she could doubtless see Abrogastes, above and behind her, on his bench, between the high-seat pillars, and then she slowly straightened her body, until she was kneeling, and then knelt forward, until her head was in the dirt again, and then the palms of her hands were on the dirt, too, and she was, as men cried out with pleasure, in a common position of obeisance, and then she lowered herself to her belly, and inched herself to the spear, as in the belly obeisance where the slave hopes to be permitted to kiss the feet of the master, and she pressed her lips to t
he dirt before it, and then, tenderly, to its sides, the left and right.

  “Glory to the Alemanni!” cried a man.

  “Glory to the Alemanni!” cried others.

  Among slaves and masters there are many such ceremonies, which are meaningful.

  The spear, as we have mentioned, may not be touched by free women, but the ministrations of female slaves figure frequently in its rituals.

  “She is on her feet again!” cried a man.

  The slave then began to dance to the tables, and to individual men, pathetically, at first, almost timidly, begging their attention, their indulgence, but soon she noted, whether it was the subtle effect of those rich, sensuous, exotic melodies which, by themselves, might have swept away the resolve of the coldest and most determined of men, and tempted even the most frigid of free women to tear away their garments, or whether it was something of her own beauty, which she now began for the first time to truly understand might be something precious and remarkable, something of great interest to men, for which they might pay much, or the dance itself, or all these things, that in the eyes of many men there glistened intense interest, heat, and desire. She saw even, in the eyes of some, awe.

  I am beautiful, she thought to herself, startled.

  She danced before Anton, the short-haired primate, and she saw the knuckles of his hairy hands, beneath the hair, whiten.

  She saw a drinking horn whose edge had been half chewed away.

  There were furrows in the table of Granicus, of the Long-Toothed People, where his claws had left, as he watched, their marks.

  The scales of one of the saurians rippled.

  She hastily moved down the table.

  The bright, compound eyes of the insectoidal warriors were upon her, but they may have seen a hundred of her.

  Before the least human aliens, too, you see, she danced, even before those who had already cast their pellets in the pan of death, as though acknowledging their right to decide as they did, but nonetheless presenting herself before them, for their inspection, and contempt, if they wished, contritely, too, in her dance begging their forgiveness for not having been found by them to be sufficiently pleasing, performing for them, thusly, you see, as for the others, as what she was, in all humility, a slave.